iPhone 5S likely delayed, iPhone 6 coming in 2014, says analyst

As Newsday reports, Apple will be pushing back its release of the iPhone 5S, to August or September, Citbank analyst Glen Yeung believes. He’s called out “volume production issues”as the most likely reason, says CNET.

While the iPhone 5S is only expected to be a small update, Yeung suggests that next generation’s iPhone 6 will be out next year, and feature a larger screen.He’s also suggested that a new MacBook Air, featuring Apple’s celebrated ‘Retina’ high-resolution screen tech, will be out soon.

Yeung’s note released Sunday also said that Apple plans to roll out a version of its lightweight MacBook Air notebook computer with a Retina display.

While Apple should be applauded for rolling out new tech with the Retina display (and hopefully, it’ll be a the new standard on all their hardware), do we really need a marginally tweaked iPhone 5 so soon before the iPhone 6? The next-gen model will likely be leaps and bounds ahead of anything we’re likely to see from an iPhone 5S, at least in terms of innovation. And if that turns out not to be the case, and the iPhone 6 fails to impress on a creative level, then they’ll be doubly open to criticism in the industry, having had two hardware failures in less than a year.

The jury is still out on both the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 6, but the market has evolved quite a bit over since the iPhone 5 launched. Google Play downloads are up 4 times from a year ago and about even with the App Store. It’s clear the iPhone 6 is where Apple’s agenda lies right now, so whatever the iPhone 5S does that its predecessor couldn’t had better be pretty impressive. If it isn’t, it could be in a position to lose its number one spot in the smartphone market within the year.